Tech —

Chinatown tales of an $85 iPhone screen replacement

On undoing your mistakes by risking new ones.

I consider myself pretty lucky, overall, for how rarely I've broken my phone in the number of times it has flown out of my hands three, four, or even five feet in the air. These are times I've misjudged a throw onto a bed or couch and had it bounce off onto the floor; times I thought I had it perfectly balanced on that uneven surface; times I thought my grip was firm and true only for that grip to give out unexpectedly; and times I went to reach for it but didn't so much reach for it as Falcon-punch it off the surface where it rested. My phone seems to spend almost as much time in the air or on the ground, face down, in a quantum superposition of shattered and intact, as it does safely in my hands.

One recent and unusually fun Tuesday, in my happy-hour two-drink overconfidence, I attempted a bold maneuver. I put my phone back in my crowded purse. Rather than pulling it off, the phone went rogue and flew out of my hands, landing on its bottom-right corner on the pavement. A spiderweb of cracks spread across the screen. I'd done it again.

Cracked screens are a little-studied phenomenon in smartphone ownership, presumably because researchers have much better things to do. One survey from 2013 by a "mobile insurance" company with an obvious vested interest in reminding everyone how fragile their phones are suggested that as many as 23 percent of iPhone owners (of the 2,471 surveyed) have cracked their screens.

While iPhone display panels used to be a separate part from the glass that covered them, Apple fused the two starting with the iPhone 4, making it much more cost-prohibitive to fix. Apple now charges $79 to fix a cracked iPhone 5 or 5S screen under AppleCare+, or $270 outside of warranty. I paid this sum once to replace a cracked iPhone 4S. I never will again.

I originally planned to tough out this shattering incident for an indeterminate amount of time—I am still 14 months out from my AT&T two-year contract renewal—but confronted reality when a few drops of rain sank into the cracks and sent the screen into spasms.

Enlarge/ The mall where King Digital Wireless is sequestered in downtown Manhattan.

There are a number of other options for fixing a screen, including sending phones away to a repair service, or buying your own $155 display assembly and performing surgery yourself. But if you happen to live in New York, there are now a number of electronics repair shops that will switch out your screen in less than 30 minutes for about one-half to a third of the cost of a display.

All DIY and third-party options put my whole phone at risk, not just because it invalidates whatever warranty I have, but because replacing the screen involves taking the entire thing apart and no one will feel sorry for me if they put it back together and it doesn't work. The water seeping through the cracks on my phone made it difficult to see anything on the display. I decided to go ahead with one of my local repair shops since I am cheap.

The location I chose, King Digital Wireless, was recommended by a friend who had his screen replaced there for $60. King Digital Wireless is located in a mostly empty two-floor mall sequestered away above the overcrowded Canal Street. I expected dingy and dimly lit, but what I got was bright, new, calm, and quiet. Used phones for sale were aligned neatly in a glass counter, and racks of cell phone cases and posters for off-brand cell plans covered the walls.

I handed my phone to the man at the front desk who would later identify himself as Mr. King. He barely looked at its shattered screen, presumably having dealt with thousands of similarly klutzy people before. King Digital Wireless is not about bedside manner: "Screen replacement? Sure, that'll be 85. It'll take about 30 minutes," he said.

"Cash only" signs were hung from every wall, so I went back downstairs and crossed the street to a Chase so I could use an ATM. When I returned, I got the Wi-Fi login from Mr. King and took a seat in one of the three chairs next to a man carrying a messenger bag, apparently waiting for a more complicated repair.

Enlarge/ The first time I shattered my iPhone's screen, and paid full price to get it replaced. Like a chump.

The next iPhone is rumored to have a slightly sturdier sapphire or sapphire-coated screen, which would help make it more resistant to shattering (Update: Corning, the makers of Gorilla Glass, reports that the sapphire screens may actually be more brittle. Good luck). In the meantime, shattered screens have created some decent third-party business. Mr. King said that on average, King Digital Wireless performs between 10 and 20 repairs a day, commonly screen replacements at $80 to $90 each. Usually the shop repairs iPhones—especially the newer 5 and 5S models—though he said he also sees a fair share of Samsung Galaxy S 4's and 5's.

King Digital has been in business for about ten years, Mr. King said, but has been doing phone repairs for only "five or six years." He sources screens directly from China, and they're made by LG, which is where Apple reportedly gets its LCD panels.

A mother with three girls in tow and a couple came in to pick up their phones while I waited, both in quiet awe of their new screens. "Wow, it's perfect," murmured the girlfriend to her probably-uncoordinated boyfriend.

After only 20 minutes, mine was ready. The screen looked perfect, and the work was seamless. I glanced at the cubicle-desk where my phone had been handed off to a woman to do the actual repair, hoping to make some grateful eye contact, but she kept her head down. I paid my $85, Mr. King gave me a curt smile, and I walked out with a bare receipt and a pristine screen.

As I walked to the train that night from another Tuesday happy hour, I felt my hair growing with the humidity into a dense rat's nest, curling aggressively into my line of view and tickling my face. I went to brush it back with both hands, one of which was holding my phone. This motion, of course, sent the thing flying behind me a full six feet into the air and face down onto the sidewalk. I picked it up.

The screen was intact. That time.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston